The Queen [DVD] [2006]

The viewer gets an interesting view of the stress that Her Majesty and Prince Charles were subjected to and how bewildered the Queen was as she was being pressurised into abandoning normal Royal protocol, when she was working on the basis that Princess Diana was no longer a Royal and therefore would not be given a State Funeral.Helen Mirren and Sylvia Syms are magnificent as the Queen and the Queen Mother as was Michael Sheen as Tony Blair and there were very good performances by many of the other actors. The script portrayed Prince Phillip as a bad tempered bully and Cherie Blair beneath contempt and as those of us who were around at the time know, the Press did everything possible to out-do each other with extreme headlines in an attempt to whip up the publics emotions and sell lots of papers! Very interestingly, as time went by, Tony Blair, who was aware of the publics affection for Princess Diana and had therefore tried very hard to change the Queen's attitude, seemed to realise how difficult it was for her in the end and was much relieved when she changed her mind.

I was 28 when Diana died and no matter what you thought of her or the Royal family, her death certainly shocked the nation. This film accurately captures the shock experienced by much of the nation.On a personal note, it was on my hearing Tony Blair's gushing and insincere speech, just after her death, that I realised I had, in fact, played my part in voting in a disingenuous psychopath of monstrous proportions. What a disaster he was - and still is. He wrecked the British establishment & the once independent civil service.

I've never really been into the totals, or any of these historical films that keep popping up (Darkest Hour, The King' s Speech etc), but most, including this one, have had such care and attention that they can be enjoyed, even by people who perhaps don't think they would enjoy the subject material.Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Alex Jennings And others combine to create an experience that is as sleek and professional as it is witty and clever. I really didn't think I would enjoy a film like this, but the film manages to keep pace and maintain an engaging script throughout. I don't want to say any more really, though if you've read the synopsis you will know the film centres around the time when Princess Diana died, and the way the queen dealt with the situation. Definitely worth a watch!

The other reviewers fail to mention the newsreel and television news footage which is included.Watching actors/actresses portraying the Royal Family is ok but including the genuine news footage included was a great idea.Princess Ann's wedding - A duplicate of her wedding dress was on show in Lewis's Limited early the following day. I managed to get to see it before the store opened.The three day week - but they did not show the piles of rubbish bags left in city centres on varying sizes of amounts of grass/empty space on public view.We all suffered the power cuts but later it was revealed that the Tory government had arranged to store fuel ready for such an occasion, did they allow the stored fuel to be used ? I seem to remember hearing they imported South African coal too towards this storage of fuel and that is mentioned in the portrayal.Also it shows the wreck of the army bus that was bombed in 1974 in a garage for investigation. I was in hospital at the time but my soldier brother was supposed to be on that particular bus. My father rang the hospital to make sure I was informed that my brother had changed to an empty seat on a later army bus leaving 30 minutes later from Chorlton Street Bus Station in Manchester so he could travel with another soldier he had not seen for a couple of years due to different postings.The later bus was not allowed to stop at the scene as the orders were in the event of incident it had to carry on with its journey. The driver did stop though to allow my brother to ring my parents before the news of the incident was broadcast to the public. He was the only one who should have been on the coach but wasn't. Sadly my brother died in 2011.If the driver of the second coach ever reads this "Thank you, sir" you must have saved my parents (and me) much heart ache and worry.My parents waited for a phone call to say my brother's coach had been blown up but it never came so the army had speedily sorted out who should have been on the coach but wasn't.I well remember watching the news of Princess Ann's narrow escape from kidnap in March. I was just home from hospital. Watching the portrayal of this incident I wondered how other members of the Royal Family would have reacted with the gun pointing at them. Would they have loudly refused as this brave young woman did.What a marvellous Queen she would have made if the law had been changed when our Queen took the throne to allow a female heir had she been first born.So this film is a documentary, a history lesson as well as an entertainment.I thought it was wonderful, not just another fictional film.

Replacement DVD. Love this film - recommend watching this second film in Morgan's informal "Blair trilogy", which dramatizes the political career of British Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997–2007), The Deal (2003) and The Queen (2006), The Special Relationship (2010) - Martin Sheen is excellent in all 3.The Queen is a 2006 British historical drama film depicting the British Royal Family's response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997. Primarily it is how a family protected two children from the overwhelming and almost hysterical public response to the death of their mother and how the royal family had to share their time of personal grief with the nation, which they did with dignity and grace whilst grappling with an abrupt requirement of flouting tradition.